Is the ship pipeline still active while the 3.0 code branch is locked?asked by Mr. Bambooza
TL;DRYes, ships are built independently of patches and slotted into whichever patch comes next once they are ready, rather than being scheduled for specific patches.
Yes. Ships are built independently of our patch system. In fact, one of the most common questions we get is, will this ship be in this patch? And the honest answer is, basically, they work on ships until they become ready, and then when the ship is ready, it goes into whatever the next patch is. So it's not that this ship is scheduled for 3.1 or this ship is scheduled for 3.3. The ships are actively being built at all times. And when they become ready, that's when we slot them into a patch. Like, for instance, when 3.0 was first announced and planned, the updated Aurora was not in 3.0. It wasn't until the development of 3.0 took longer and went on through months that the Aurora became ready. And so now it goes in.
Well, let's give some credit to the Aurora guys, because they actually beat their timeline on that.
Yes, they did. They did that real darn fast. We thought the Aurora was originally going to be a 3.1 ship, and they got their work done quickly, and 3.0 development is taking what it took, so that's how it goes. When it's ready, that's the patch it goes into. So when we say when it's ready, it's not that we're being sly or coy with the answer. It's the legitimate truth. When it becomes ready, it goes into the patch that's there for it.
There's actually quite a few things that came online earlier than intended.
You'll see that not just in ships, but in all other sorts of development. There are folks working on things that are for later patches right now.
If their work gets done earlier, then it can get slotted in.